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Bernie Pulls Switcheroo With Raikkonen
– Mr. Ecclestone, fed up with all the whining from rich teams and begging bowls from the poor teams turned his stake in F1 over to driver Kimi Raikkonen in order to take over his seat at Ferrari. Bernie claims he can do the job and that a friend once told him any taxi driver can drive in F1. He also went on to say that Raikkonen is almost as old as him anyway and that he weighs less than Kimi so the car is bound to go faster and he’ll beat that boring Vettel. When Kimi was approached regarding this astounding news, he said leave me alone, I know what I’m doing.

Another F1 journalist on Twitter was tweeting about the “driver of the race” as though this were any other Grand Prix. I wasn’t going to respond because the whole topic seemed so disrespectful. I decided to respond; “Jules Bianchi, because I cannot think about anyone else right now.”

Sad when our fun turns to tragedy. The least we can do is show respect. Continued prayers for Jules and his family.

I’m here in the states without access to cable or satellite to watch races or replays. I usually watch online and try to look for Sky because Brundle is my current favorite commentator for F1 and the Sky reporting is usually pretty decent.

During the actual race I thought Sky handled it fairly well and tried to be as respectful as possible while still doing their job. They suspected something was up at that corner pretty quickly after it happened and instantly shifted their reporting toward respectfully getting whatever information they could. Brundle was obviously affected by this incident and had even earlier spoke about his frighteningly similar accident that occurred in 1994. I appreciated the fact that they all maintained a level of professionalism while reporting on a tragic situation as it unfolded.

I realize that this may not be exactly what you were asking, but I felt it needed to be said.

Locally I have yet to hear any reports about Bianchi, the Japanese Grand Prix or anything F1 at all. Thanks good ness for the internet where I have been able to follow whatever reports are available. And thanks for your site, @keithcollantine for providing updates and for the commenters adding their news, thoughts and prayers.

Watching Jim Clark on ABC Wide World of Sports F1 coverage in the mid 1960s. This was long before there was live coverage here in the states. I was just a kid and already into racing. I followed stock car racing and Indy Car racing too. Clark raced in the Indy 500 and that got my attention. I started watching F1 after that and at some point got a Jim Clark poster for my bedroom wall. Then it was a progression from Clark into Gurney, McLaren, Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart and on and on. The TV coverage got progressively better over the years and that helped.

Prost to receive a 10 place grid penalty for the next race. Heidfeld says he believes Prost did not crash on purpose as they are friends. Prost accepts blame for causing the crash after watching video. He says he did not see Heidfeld.

Anyways, seems a bit light on the penalty, but better than nothing. Still disappointed for Heidfeld though.

Looking forward to the next race. The next track looks much more promising. Hope the powers that be listen to the race fans and make the most important improvements soon. Final note, it was good to hear Dario Franchitti on the race broadcast. Thought he did a good job and it’s good to have that real race car driver’s perspective.

Very good start to a truly groundbreaking series. Decent action and overtaking through most of the race. The pit stops/car changes went better than what I had anticipated. This race proved again that great racers are great racers no matter what they are driving. Prost did well to maintain his lead through the race, until his last lap debacle that deserve a race ban. Heidfeld and Montagny moved up nicely. It held my attention throughout and there were very few glitches for a brand new series and racing technology.

Bad points, as others have mentioned:
Fan boost, although it seemed mostly forgotten once the race began.
FIA Formula E needs to beef up their website servers to handle the traffic. Makes them look rather unprofessional to be essentially offline for about 24 hours during qualifying and the race.
The soundtrack music is utterly stupid. It’s like adding a really annoying laugh track to a funny TV show. Not needed! Lose it, now!
The track itself was absolutely horrible. Can’t wait to see better facilities.

JPM cannot forget how to drive an open wheel racing car because he still has the same attribute he started with, instinct. He can learn the the current nuances of IndyCar. He will win races. One of my favorite open wheel racers from CART to F1, it is fun to watch JPM drive. This is a step in the right direction for him.

1) Less Downforce, More Mechanical Grip – Less turbulence, easier following and passing should be the goal. Similar regs were nearly put into place for 2014 and scrapped, presumably, to keep DRS instead.
2) Ban DRS – Since an expanded use of KERS is included with the new engine package it is doubtful we will see and end to it anytime soon. So keep the new KERS as a way to add more power for passing and abolish DRS. If cars are able to get closer, less turbulent air – see #1), KERS use can assist with passing. Even with the expanded use of KERS the driver still needs to budget its usage over a lap. (Much better than the push to pass use allowed so many times per race that has been used in other series.)
3) Better Distribution Of Wealth – This is not a debate about how great Bernie may or may not be. This is about greed killing the show that the revenue is derived from. If all the teams get a bigger share of the wealth and it is distributed more fairly this will expand the talent base and abilities of the teams to provide a better show. Sponsored drivers are just fine. Paid drivers with lesser talent brought in to keep teams afloat and even to help pay the more talented drivers brings the talent level down and is detrimental to the show. Stop it! A better distribution of wealth for all teams on the grid will also reward the smaller teams like Marussia who have a great team spirit and accomplished great teams for a team at the back of the grid. Their reliability was better than many of the top teams. Maybe with more prize money they could add more speed to go along with that. Look at what Lotus has done with a smaller budget than the rich teams. And now they should be forced to take on a pay driver just to stay in business? That is criminal. Share the wealth F1!
4) Tires – Keep the two compounds of tires. Make them hard and medium to soft. Don’t require the usage of both during a race. Do require that the race is started on the qualifying tire used, just like now. If a team wants to build their car to do better with a softer compound tire that degrades sooner and employ more pit stops, that is their choice. (Note – the tire should not degrade too quickly and yet provide for 2 to 3 stops per race. The hard tires should last for the entire race or maybe 1 stop.) With less downforce, more mechanical grip and a choice of developing cars for either hard or soft tires will provide for different strategies and more passing based on how teams and drivers choose to set up their cars.
5) More In Season Testing – More wealth distribution will allow for more testing. (See #3) This will benefit all teams and provide more information/experience towards developing cars, testing tires and for young drivers.
• Additional Note – No Refueling Ever! – Please. It is far too dangerous and totally unneeded. Ask any pit workers or drivers who have been burned during refueling about the dangers. There are so many other safer alternatives to improve the show rather than reintroducing an archaic practice that modern technology in F1 has made totally obsolete. Fuel saving engines are not going away and make refueling even less likely in F1. This is not NASCAR.

Sorry to hear this news, but glad Dario is still around after his accident. He has been my favorite IndyCar/CART driver for some time now and he will be missed by many. Dario, Greg Moore, Zanardi and JPM were bright spots in a series that became dulled with bad politics and greedy series ownership. Considering what he has been through, Dario is one of the lucky ones. Hope he uses this opportunity to find something interesting to do next.

Great research! It is always nice to have facts to rebut the conspiracy theorists. I don’t know why so many people are so willing to believe that Formula 1 teams would spend millions to have two cars and drivers in each race to then purposely sabotage one of their own cars thereby decreasing their point scoring ability for the team by 50%. At the end of the season prize money is dispersed based on points accumulated and yet some people want to believe that teams are willing to put one driver above the whole rest of the team including the owners. THat would be ludicrous and it would be far cheaper at that point to not even be in F1.